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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27916387">if this was a movie (you'd be here by now)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreblack/pseuds/moreblack'>moreblack</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>speak now except it's aftg [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(especially aaron), Angst, Angst with a sad ending, Boys In Love, Kevin is oblivious, Love Confessions, M/M, aaron is scared of rejection, based on if this was a movie by taylor swift, kevaaron - Freeform, they're dumbasses, your honour</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:34:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27916387</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreblack/pseuds/moreblack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> come back, come back, come back to me like you could, you could if you just said you're sorry</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>in which kevin makes a mistake, and him and aaron might never be the same because of it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kevin Day/Aaron Minyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>speak now except it's aftg [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044177</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>if this was a movie (you'd be here by now)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>sorry for this i blame taylor</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had been six months.</p>
<p>Half a year ago, Kevin was sitting in a garden next to Aaron. Half a year ago, they had one too many shots. Half a year ago, Kevin followed his heart for the first time and leant in, and now his entire world was upside down.</p>
<p>Aaron and him still hadn’t talked. Not properly. They’d woken up that morning in Columbia, heads pounding from a hangover and hearts pounding from what Aaron had titled a ‘mistake’, and Kevin had turned his music to full volume in the car so he couldn’t blurt out that he didn’t want it to be a mistake. </p>
<p>And when he finally had time to himself, he hid his face in his hand and let himself cry. Really cry. More than he had in years.</p>
<p>Since then, he thought they’d gotten better. They didn’t find an excuse anymore to walk out the room whenever the other walked in. He didn’t immediately check the contact name every time his phone buzzed with a new text. Their teammates had stopped asking why they were giving each other the silent treatment.</p>
<p>But still, they hadn’t gone so far as talking to each other for no reason, or hanging out. So Kevin didn’t know how to react when Aaron brushed past him in the hallway and murmured, “Meet me in the coffee shop, down the street. Seven.” And then he was off, not giving Kevin enough time to say something undoubtedly stupid in return.</p>
<p>He blurred through practice and the rest of his classes. All he could think of was Aaron’s voice, of Aaron going out of his way to talk to him, of what Aaron was going to say at the coffee shop. He seemed to think about Aaron Minyard an awful lot recently.</p>
<p>By the time the clock chimed seven, he was sitting straight-backed in a coffee shop, watching the rain hit the window as he tugged at his sweater. He’d pulled on the cutest thing he could find which was, unfortunately for him, also the scratchiest.</p>
<p>Not that he was trying to look cute. Or anything like that.</p>
<p>The door chimed and Kevin’s head snapped up, hands tightening around his cold brew. Aaron was practically drowning in a huge blue coat, his hair wet and floppy but still the prettiest. most stupid thing Kevin had seen. He didn’t even need to try to look cute. Kevin hated it.</p>
<p>His eyes caught Kev’s immediately, like they always did, and a second later Aaron was sitting across the table from him. It didn’t feel real. Kevin cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly. “Did you see the, uh, the new Trojans game? That goal?”</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah, it was Knox, right? In the last few seconds.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, three seconds before the game ended. It was insane. He—”</p>
<p>“Let’s just. Skip the small talk and get straight to the point, yeah?” Aaron leant back in his chair. “We both know why we’re here, and we both know this-” He gestured around them. “-should have happened six months ago. Can we just… I’m just so sick of not talking, Kev. We were drunk. We made mistakes. You’re still my best friend, I can’t lose you over this.”</p>
<p>And there it was again. That word. <i>Mistake.</i></p>
<p>He put on his infamous press smile and saw the exact moment Aaron’s expression soured. “I think you lost me when you aired me for two of those six months. Or when I tried to ask about your day and you threw a yoghurt pot at me. Really, for someone who claims to dislike their brother as much as you do, that was a bit of an Andrew thing to do.”</p>
<p>For a moment, Aaron stared at him, and Kevin felt the regret start to fill up in him. God, he needed to stop hanging around Neil or he would end up blurting out every last thing he thought. “Well, I was… angry. We all do stupid things when we’re angry,” Aaron tried to reason.</p>
<p>“Angry at what?” It was a genuine question. Kevin tilted his head, waiting for Aaron to stop spluttering, and when he didn't, he took a deliberately loud sip of his coffee. <i>Calm down, count to ten, take a breather,</i> his brain was calling out to him. He was used to keeping his emotions under a lid, never too angry to push it down. But something about Aaron sitting here, looking like something straight out of a fairy tale and acting like he could solve things by calling them mistakes and saying he was angry because he was the one who'd made Kevin cry when he thought his eyes were going to be dry forever, was setting off all the rage that Kevin had ever swallowed down. “Look, I know you don't like me in that way. I know you never will. But can we just go back to normal? I don't know why you've dragged me here to ask it, because last time I checked you were the one acting like I don't exist.”</p>
<p>Whatever he expected Aaron to say next, it certainly wasn't: “Of course I like you that way, you shithead.”</p>
<p>Kevin froze, his drink halfway to the table. This wasn't…. this had to be a dream. A prank. “Don't joke, Minyard.” But Aaron didn't look like he was joking. He looked so serious that it was setting off alarms in Kevin’s head.</p>
<p>“Can we go outside?” he muttered, and Kevin had never heard his voice that quiet, he was up on his feet in seconds. </p>
<p>It seemed Aaron was full of surprises because he wheeled on him the second they left, his eyes alight. “You really think I’m not in love with you? No, don't answer that,” he interrupted before Kevin could get a word in. “I thought I’d made it clear, jeez. The entire team knows. I didn't think you'd be this oblivious.”</p>
<p>Kevin glared at him. “And how was I supposed to know? When you refused to talk to me, was I supposed to know then? When you looked at me like the shit on the bottom of your shoe, was I supposed to know then?” <i>This is like joint therapy, </i>Kevin thought half-hysterically. <i>One minute in and we’re already at each other's necks.</i></p>
<p>“Oh, maybe you were supposed to know when we kissed in goddamn Columbia!”</p>
<p>“You literally <i>just</i> said that was a mistake.”</p>
<p>“People say things they don't mean sometimes, Kevin, not everyone is a fucking saint.”</p>
<p>“I’m not a saint,” he said, the words shocked out of him.</p>
<p>Aaron paused and turned pink, like he'd just realised what he had said. “I didn't— ugh, whatever. What I’m saying is I said it was a mistake because you think it's a mistake.”</p>
<p>“I don't think it's a mistake, Aaron, I've never thought it was a mistake. You're the one who called it that.” Everything was bubbling up now. A whole half-year of repressed feelings and tension, finally coming to the surface. "We could have at least talked about it."</p>
<p>"I didn't want you to say what I said," he muttered under his breath, clenching his fists. What, was he going to fight Kevin now? Punch him in the face just because his heart was shattering more and more with every second?</p>
<p>Kevin rolled his eyes. "It's not like I could do anything else. I thought you were disgusted by me. You certainly fucking acted like it," he pointed out.</p>
<p>Even Aaron couldn't argue with that. All he said was, "I thought I made it pretty clear that I felt the opposite way."</p>
<p>“You're the one who made me feel like I wasn't worth a dime, and now you expect me to magically know that you don't hate me?” His voice shook on the last word. He pretended it hadn't happened, still glaring firmly at Aaron.</p>
<p>Rain sticking his blond hair down, Aaron looked livid.  “Oh, I wish I could hate you. I don’t know how you can’t fucking see it, everywhere I go I can’t stop seeing you. Can’t stop seeing your <i>stupid eyes</i> in every leaf and every field and every fucking thing, can’t stop seeing your <i>stupid face</i> in the history books at the library, can’t stop hearing your <i>stupid voice</i> every time someone talks and hoping for a second that it’s going to be you.” Aaron was crying now, his voice shaking as he shouted, and shit, Kevin had never seen him cry. “Or maybe I do hate you, Kevin Day. Maybe I hate you <i>so much</i> because you won’t let me hate you, and I want to so bad, but I don’t! I don’t, because maybe I fucking love you!”</p>
<p>For a terrifying minute, Kevin couldn’t say anything, his mind failing him as he looked at the boy that had broken his heart crying in front of him. Then he cleared his throat and squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to look anymore. “Aaron-”</p>
<p>Footsteps. And then a: “Don’t.” Kevin’s eyes shot back open to Aaron’s back to him. </p>
<p>“Aaron Minyard, don’t you dare walk away from me.” By the time the words were out, Aaron had frozen in his tracks, but Kevin kept going. “Don’t you <i>dare</i> say shit like that and then just leave me here. Is your memory really that terrible or did you just put a mental block on the fact I was the one who initiated it?” Aaron turned back to face him at that, eyes wide and teary, and Kevin jabbed a finger into his chest. “I have gone six months with the word 'mistake' playing on my mind every second of every day, wishing that it’s all a bad dream and I’m gonna wake up in Columbia, and your arms are gonna be around me, and we can actually talk like civil fucking humans that care about each other’s emotions. Because I have emotions, Aaron! Just because they’re not at surface level doesn’t mean they’re not there at all, and you don’t get to dictate how I feel! You don’t get to decide that I haven’t been in love with you for- for- as long as I’ve known you, and you don’t get to decide that I don’t think of hazel eyes as much as you think of green ones, and you don’t get to decide that I haven’t been wanting to do what I did six months ago for a year now.” </p>
<p>Silence, again, so thick you could cut it with a knife. Aaron stared at him like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He started to shake his head, like he was going to ignore every fucking bit of Kevin’s heart he had just poured out to him, and a foul taste filled Kevin’s mouth. “If you look me in the eyes right now and say one more time that I don’t feel the same, for god’s sake, I am going to scream. I’ve spent far too long loving you for you to decide that I don’t just so you don’t get hurt.”</p>
<p>Aaron just kept shaking his head. Why wouldn’t he stop shaking his head? “Don’t- don’t start, Kev. I’m not a pity party, and you’re not in love with me. You’re in love with the backliner on your court. You’re in love with the boy who doesn’t show that he’s so scared, all the fucking time, and you’re not in love with who that boy actually is. You’re not in love with me.” God, this was like a movie scene. Only if it was a movie Aaron wouldn’t still be crying. If it was a movie Kevin wouldn’t be feeling like something inside of him was so terribly, terribly wrong.</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah, sure. Because you’re the only one here who’s traumatised. You think I’m weirded out by that? You think I’m any <i>better?”</i></p>
<p>He let that lie between them for a second, and this time when Aaron turned away, he didn’t try to stop him.</p>
<p>Kevin knew, then, it wasn't a movie. If it was a movie, Aaron would be standing next to him.</p>
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